renal diet and phosphorus

They stress that everyone on hemodialysis is a little different. Some people have a three hour dialysis run, some four hours. One element that is common is diet. The restricted diet is a huge daily struggle. Dialysis does not remove potassium and phosphorus. The best thing to do is to avoid foods high in phosphorus. The other essential thing to do is to take your binder. What is a binder? Calcium carbonate chemically bonds with phosphorus and that compound can be removed through dialysis. I take my calcium carbonate in the form of 750mg TUMS. I take five of these with each meal. I keep a bottle of Tums in my car for meals I eat outside of home meals.

My phosphorus is too high. We get our blood taken monthly and the lab checks a number of things. I had one month when my phosphorus reading was well into the good range but the next month it was back up. The rest of my blood work is fine.

I originally got a ten page handout on diet and spoke to a nutritionist on several clinic days. More recently I asked for more information and received a 22 page list of food types including specific products with commonly eaten amounts and the phosphorus amount listed. I have been studying it. Two unlikely “bad” foods I will mention here: cottage cheese and yoghurt, both are high in phosphorus. So they are banished from even once in awhile status. I will be making further adjustments to my diet with the aim of reducing my phosphorus level.